Today and tomorrow, I’ll have previews of the two biggest fights of the weekend: Amir Khan-Dmitriy Salita (junior welterweight) and Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez (middleweight), both Saturday. I’ve also already previewed the Williams-Martinez undercard. But there’s a boxing card tonight and a few other tidbits worth mentioning, so mention them I shall.
- Versus card, New York City, Thursday. The main event is between two junior welterweights with some talent who have suffered setbacks in their most recent television appearances: Mike Arnaoutis on HBO, in a knockout loss to Victor Ortiz, and Tim Coleman on Showtime, in a decision loss to James De La Rosa. Graham Houston says it “should be a cracking good fight,” and I believe him, even though both thrive more on boxing skills than world-class power, its just that I’m still a little surprised that this is a headlining fight on Versus given the network’s on-again, off-again relationship with boxing. On the undercard, junior welterweight Ray Robinson — “The New” Ray Robinson, that is — takes on an opponent with a similar record, Brad Solomon, but it’s hard to say if he’s had the same quality work. I liked what I saw from “The New” when he was on ESPN2 not so long ago. Also: Maureen Shea, “The Real Million Dollar Baby,” who helped Hillary Swank prepare for her role in the movie. [UPDATE: Oh my God, I forgot to mention it was at “Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club,” and that heavyweight Shannon Briggs’ talented, underachieving ass was making his upteenth comeback.]
- ShoBox card, California, Friday. Tyrone Brunson is a junior middleweight who has the dubious honor of holding the record for longest streak of 1st round knockouts (19), breaking a record that had just been set by Edwin Valero — and the consensus is that, while Valero’s opposition over that time was bad, Brunson’s was worse. Thus, “dubious.” It ended in a draw against an opponent who had won one of his last six fights, two by knockout, and some thought Brunson lost, so it gets more dubious there. His Friday opponent, Carson Jones, has only lost once in his last 12 fights, and that was to a quality foe, Jesus Soto Karass, so maybe we’ll get a sense of how good Brunson is, which is the idea behind ShoBox, after all. On the undercard, Gary Shaw presents us with his second consecutive ShoBox card featuring late starters, as the 29-year-old junior lightweight Mauricio Herrera takes his two years of pro experience into the ring with Mike Anchondo, a former highly-regarded prospect who never got over the hump.
- Marco Huck-Ola Afolabi, Germany, Saturday, ARD. Sometimes ARD broadcasts its fights on the internet at www.ard.de, so you might give this quite interesting cruiserweight fight a look. Huck is an exciting fighter with some talent who’s coming off a win over a top-10 level division opponent, Victor Ramirez, and Afolabi is coming off one of the biggest upsets and best knockouts of 2009, a cremation of Enzo Maccarinelli. Seriously, this could be a nice little fight between two top-10 cruiserweights.
- The Rest of the Rest. Friday on Telemundo and GoFightLive.TV, cards of a somewhat nondescript nature (is Cosme Rivera actually headlining the Telemundo show?)… In London Saturday, the latest installment of the “Prizefighter” series featuring a bunch of fights on one night, with junior welterweight Gavin Rees, formerly of the division’s top-10, being perhaps the person with the best resume… The world’s #2 bantamweight, Anselmo Moreno, defends his alphabet title in France… On the Khan-Salita undercard, former Khan conqueror Breidis Prescott fights in an alphabet title eliminator against Kevin Mitchell… On the Huck-Afolabi undercard, heavyweight Alexender Ovetkin stays busy.
